U.S. Officials Brace for Possible SARS Spread

AP - FOX NEWS ^ | May 01, 2003

[CathyRyan]

WASHINGTON

[aristeides]

Let's hope this isn't overconfidence speaking: U.S. has contained SARS virus, health officials say.

[blam]

Bump. 3,000 additional ventilators, doesn't sound like many.

[CathyRyan]

Maybe all that could be obtained? I imagine they are a hot property right now. Wonder how many they already have?

[Calpernia]

Just you see this one?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=68&ncid=68&e=1&u=/nyt/20030502/ts_nyt/sars_spreading_fast_in_taiwan__which_fights_to_contain_it

[Calpernia]

Did you, not Just you.

Too many browser windows opened :P

[CathyRyan]

Good find! I had not seen that.

[Judith Anne]

Did you see this paragraph?

Many communities do not have enough beds to house a large number of sick people with contagious diseases. By the end of the year, every region is supposed to have beds to house an unexpected surge of 1,000 infectious patients; federal funding for bioterrorism preparedness is helping.

What do they know that they aren't telling? This is a serious plan for serious expectations...

[Jim Noble]

SARS spread isn't possible-it's certain.

As long as SARS infected individuals can come here in massive numbers, it's only a matter of time.

[Domestic Church]

If we are using 80% of the 100,000 ventilators before SARS an additional 3000 is a drop in the bucket. For an initial fall outbreak we will need an additional 20,000 to save lives I would imagine. I wonder what HHS was thinking.

[Domestic Church]

What bothers me is that they expect 1000 cases per region by the end of the year but aren't getting enough ventilators.

[Domestic Church]

Are you seeing real preparations to treat a SARS breakout this fall from your position or only palliative preparations?

Did you see the stats on genetic predisposition that Cobalt Blue posted on the Baffling Resistance thread?

"Distribution of a genetic polymorphism (variant R131/H131 to be specific) of the Fcgamma receptor (CD32) may have implications for disease susceptibility if cirulating IgG2 is involved. It turns out that the spike glycoprotein of some coronaviruses might in fact have such activity.

The H131/R131 polymorphism is known to be an important outcome predictor in other diseases like bacterial respiratory infections, meningococcal infection, malaria, Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever, SLE, and Kaposi sarcoma. The H131 version has a high affinity for IgG2, while the R131 version of the receptor only binds IgG2 weakly.

More importantly, the H131 version is present in 61% of ethnic Chinese, 50% of Japanese, while only 23% of Caucasians or Asian Indians have the high affinity H131 CD32 receptor.

This suggests as a working hypothesis that SARS may provoke a cascade, via CD32-binding and downstream activation of NF-kB and other inflammatory pathways. Immune suppression could reduce the number of circulating CD32+ cells. Certainly infants have lower levels and activity of CD32+ cells, since it would be counterproductive to circulating maternal antibody levels."

[CobaltBlue]

CD32 H131/R131 isn't the only genetic polymorphism that gives different racial distribution of resistance to disease.

People who are homozygous for CCR5- delta 32 (whatever that is) don't come down with AIDS, while those who are heterozygous for CCR5- delta 32 have delayed disease progress.

It may also give immunity to the Black Death. 10%-15% of Europeans are heterozygous for CCR5- delta 32, 1% are homozygous, and only 2% carry the gene at all in central Asia. The mutation is completely absent among East Asians, Africans, and American Indians.

http://www.cdc.gov/genomics/hugenet/factsheets/FS_CCR5.htm
http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/recent/cxcr4/010803a.html
http://student.biology.arizona.edu/honors97/group12/nojava/ccr5.htm
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf119/sf119p05.htm

This is a fascinating field but brand new.

[CobaltBlue]

>>This is a serious plan for serious expectations...<<

Given that Al Qaeda is experimenting with anthrax, ricin, and nerve gases, I think it's reasonable to plan for the worst and hope for the best.

[Domestic Church]

Thanks...fascinating indeed. There is so much "new" out there!

[Jim Noble]

>>Are you seeing real preparations to treat a SARS breakout this fall from your position or only palliative preparations?<<

I ordered all the N95 respirators we could buy on 3/28.

Now, there are none available.

Other than that, I'm not aware of any preparations, other than the standard "state preparedness plans".

[Judith Anne]

Thank you all for your input on this thread. Lots of it is above my pay grade, but seems to indicate that current strains of SARS are most infectious to Asians. Still, the 23% of Caucasians without the proper heredity is a heck of a lot of people...in the US, it's around 70 million, isn't it? Am I missing something here?

I just wonder what the highly mutagenic RNA strands of this particular type of coronavirus will do over the summer...

[Domestic Church]

"what the highly mutagenic RNA strands of this particular type of coronavirus will do over the summer..."

Here's hoping they get blown to smithereens by interferon beta and protease inhibitors (best news out of Fort Detrick.)